You could be with your older guy for the wrong reasons. By John Bastick
When Gold Coast model Kristy Hinze married Texan billionaire Jim Clark last March, it didn’t arouse too much of a stir in the Australian press. And why should it have? After all, a filthy rich bloke bagging himself a hot bride is hardly anything out of the ordinary.
But it was the age difference between the two that, quite strangely, had no-one talking. She’s 30, he’s 65! Where was the feminist outrage? Where were the newspaper headlines berating her for possibly marrying him for his fortune?
Dating down
Actual facts that prove women are dating and marrying much older men are hard to come by. However, a 2009 report by the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that divorced men who remarry are choosing brides, on average, almost 10 years their junior.
Men have chased younger women since forever. Supposedly, the boffins argue, men’s brains are wired to thinking that younger, prettier females are more conducive to childrearing. Meanwhile, a 2007 study by Swedish scientists found that divorced blokes almost always chose new partners that were considerably younger than their former wives. Why, exactly, they couldn’t say.
Celebs do it
One person in the midst of this new dating phenomenon is Lija Jarvis from online dating service RSVP. Jarvis says there’s no real evidence to suggest women are deliberately seeking out older guys, but, what they are doing – particularly those aged 30-plus – is looking for a partner who’s financially secure, something all older blokes are.
Jarvis also agrees there’s far less stigma associated to these sorts of relationships. “Celebrity has changed it,” she points out. “Pick up any magazine and you’ll see older women and younger guys, younger women marrying much older men. It’s helped broaden what people think is acceptable. But having said that, yes, I still think there’s a taboo surrounding an attractive 30-year-old dating a man in his sixties.”
Jarvis says the usual misconception about the older man is that he’s a sports-car-driving, smooth-tongued Lothario. The truth is somewhat different. She cites a recent study by RSVP that found most 50-year-olds – of either sex – “weren’t very confident when it came to dating.
These divorcees had basically been with the one partner their entire lives, so the idea of going out dating was really frightening to them … they basically hadn’t been on a first date for 30 years”.